Product Description

The credit crunch is having a massive impact on what we eat. The average familyÂ’s annual food bill went up by £1000 last year. As the approaching recession forces us to tighten our belts, are we really going to have to face months of grim news with nothing but grim food to sustain us? The answer is 'no!' Top chefs Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merrett not only show us how to cut our food bills in half, but how we can eat like royalty at the same time. Economy Gastronomy is about planning ahead, shopping well, spending less and using ingredients ingeniously to create flavour-packed food every day. The 100 delicious recipes cover breakfasts and lunches, snacks and treats, with chapters to show you how to achieve expensive-looking meals without spending a fortune so you can entertain in style and make something from nothing. Detailed recipes reveal versatile skills you can use in a range of recipes. Form meal planning to seasonal shopping, from loving leftovers to store-cupboard basics, the economy gastronomy system combines traditional skills with restaurant flair.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #224 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

About the Author
Paul Merrett owns and runs the Victoria Pub and Dining Rooms in Sheen. He has been awarded a Michelin star twice, and is the author of Using the Plot: Tales of an Allotment Chef (2008).He was the presenter of BBC Two's Ever Wondered About Food... series, and co-presented a BBC Two ten-part prime-time series called The Best. Paul is married with two children. Allegra McEvedy co-founded Leon, the award-winning healthy, fast-food restaurant group. In 2008, she was awarded an MBE for services to the hospitality industry. She is the Resident Chef of the GuardianÂ’s G2, and writes a blog column for the Observer Food Monthly. Her second book Allegra McEvedyÂ’s Colour Cookbook won the IACP 2007 Cook Book award. She was born and educated in West London, where she still lives.

Customer Reviews

Waste not, want not - "let's get in the kitch!"
This book goes with the TV show on BBC2, which aims to create delicious meals that cost LOADS less. Paul Merrett is a chef I've seen before on TV, very accomplished and knowledgeable about food, but his co-author Allegra McEvedy is my favourite of the two. Tall, blonde, and a bit 'jolly hockey sticks', she shortens all her words, exclaiming "let's get in the kitch!" when she wants to start cooking. She just makes it all seem easy and fun.

There are a hundred recipes in the book, balanced between Merrett's, which are slightly more ambitious and restaurant-y, and McEvedy's which are tasty, tasty, tasty. (I'm not sure macaroni cheese with added artichokes is ever really going to make a truly 'cheap' meal, artichokes are just too pricey, but it tastes amazing.) She is the founding chef of London's LEON restaurant chain which specialise in really cheap delicious 'fast food', so she's great at knowing how to do things.

Most of the money-saving ideas are really good, and I'm impressed by the totting up of how much various households saved switching over to Merrett and McEvedy's system. Totally avoiding food waste is the most important element, with bits and pieces being used up to make stock, flavour soups and so on. And also they are great at sneaking illicit vegetables into dishes for kids who refuse to eat them normally.

This would be an okay book if it just put forward the system, but the recipes from these two fine chefs make it a must-have. Brilliant!



PS you can check out some of the recipes on the Guardian website, google Guardian and Economy Gastronomy and you should get four ways of cooking salmon.

A book for non-cooks
There's little to learn here for anyone but the least experienced cooks - except for a clear method that the cooks claim will save you money. Most of the recipes here are real standards that anyone with more than a handful of cookbooks will already have. Most recipes are very time consuming and not devised for people with limited time on their hands. The 'system' that McEvedy and Merrett advocate - creating a 'bedrock' meal then for days afterwards eating 'tumbledown' meals (ie leftovers) seems kind of crazy. Yes, leftovers are good, but what's on offer here is endless themes and variations on mince that you're supposed to consume across a week that would ensure that me and my family quickly gave up the will to live (or, at least, to eat). Some of the recipes just look plain ghastly. Anyone for Hot Dog Hotpot (frankfurters, egg noodles, white cabbage and a few other things)? No, I thought not.

There are plenty of other books anyone with a real interest in food will find far more useful: for ecomomy meals try Delia Smith's Frugal Food, Jocasta Innes's classic The Pauper's Cookbook or 101 One-Pot Dishes or even Fay's Family Food; for seasonal approaches try Delia's Summer and Winter, Jeremy Round's The Independent Cook, Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall's The River Cottage Year or Valentine Warner's new offerings. I'd recommend this book only to people who intend to rigorously stick to the 'system,'. It's not a recipe book to dip into if you already have the odd copy of Delia, Nigella or Jamie on your bookshelf.

Really good book for frugal cooks.
I received mine this morning by post and have read it cover to cover. I am now making the hummous recipe for a picnic tomorrow.
I can see me doing the "bedrock" recipes time and time again, saving both money and time in the kitchen.